August 2005 Archives

Just had to share real quick. I finally finished running a pull string from my distribution point in the basement to the end point in the living room. I went up the chimney chase for the heat, across the attic, drilled a hole in the ceiling and then back down the wall. It took me a good five hours to do this. I am not done since I still have to run the wires, but I believe this is the hard part done. Point A to B in a solid line.

Update 4:30 PM : I have the conduit in place, the wire marked off, run from basement through conduit up to attic and to the corner to come back down the wall. I had to stop and get cleaned up for a party tonight. All I need to do now is fish the wire back down the wall through the hole I drilled. I may have to widen hole or make another since I drilled down on the edge of a stud. Which caused 1/3-1/2 of my hole to be blocked by stud. I broke the spade bit in the process when hit that. Have to use my 3/4" one for the next hole.

Once I get the wire fished down and terminated on both ends I will be done with data/video wiring to upstairs. I have also finished 1/2 of the electrical wiring to upstairs. I think I might be able to order DirecTV for next weekend, yeah!

8/23/2005 6:04 PM - EB Games sends out email announcing the availability of pre-order for Xbox 360.
8/23/2005 6:35 PM - Brian Hoyt completes his order of the Xbox 360 Ultimate Bundle.

Sometime in November Brian is happy. Sometime in December he has to pay for it and is less happy.

About two weeks ago I went out to dinner with Heather. She mentioned that she was going to give her two cats to her mother shortly. I had thought about getting a cat but didn't want a kitty that I would have to train. Zues is about 4-5 years old so he is past all of that. He seems to have gotten used to being here quite well.

At Heather's house he was mostly an indoor cat but sometimes went outside. After a week or so at my place he started looking out the window quite a lot. On Friday night I decided to take him out on a leash to get used to the surroundings of the house. I don't like cat leashes either but I wanted to slowly work him into the outside world. It went fine for a few minutes and then he decided to freak out and run away. He eventually pulled out of the harness I had him in. I chased him for a while but he kept running away. I figured there was no good in chasing him farther away.

I called Heather and we decided he would come back. He didn't Friday night or during the day on Saturday. He was sitting on the front porch however when I cam back later Saturday night. He seems to be happy as ever. Now to get him tags and see if they will stay on.

This weekend I again have full on FLU symptoms. Saturday I spent most of the day in bed. Throughout the night I had a fever I belive since I kept alternating between sweating and chills so bad my teeth were chattering. I am hoping resting more today will help me get better by tomorrow. I think I have been sicker this spring and summer than any in recent memory.

Yesterday I went to Giant to get a few things. As I checked out I got cash back. However it seems I didn't actually get the cash. Apparently I was so out of it I didn't notice it. The cashier also didn't notice either. I noticed it last night and went back to Giant. At that point the cash drawers were locked in a safe and they said they would check this morning. I got a call about 10 AM telling me that they found the drawer $50 rich and I could come and get my money today. Oops.

Saturday morning I ventured out to the local Verizon store. This was an interesting experience. I was first met by a greeter who asked what I needed. At first I just wanted to look at phones. Once I was sure what my replacement was I went to the counter that appeared to be processing purchases. I was informed I needed to put my name on a list to be served. It was like a list at a resteraunt, I have never experienced anything like this. While I waited I looked around. There was also a customer service line, a tech support line and then an ATM like device to pay your bill at. Once my name was called a started working with the sales person. I explained I lost my phone and wanted to get a new one. He informed me that since it had only been 11 months since I got the last phone I would have to pay full retail. My immediate comment was that "I am being punished for being a current customer." He smiled and took it in stride, obviously he had heard this before. He told me he could cut me a little bit of a deal, but it was still about $100 more than the standard price. As a bonus I now have a new 2 year contract.

We talked about the fact that Verizon has crippled the phone I got (Motorola E815) just like they did my previous one (Motorola V710) and all other bluetooth phones. As he was finishing ringing me up he mentioned that the Motorola was better than the LG since it was "less" crippled. At this point I asked if he would have told me I made a bad choice if I got the LG phone. He said no, he doesn't recommend one brand over the other. The funny thing was the customer standing next to me was buying an LG phone and quickly asked "is there something wrong with LG?" The two verizon people then quickly showed that they both have LG phones trying to clean up the mess I created.

I now have a new phone and a new 410 cell number. Anyone reading this please send me your numbers so I can program them in my new phone. Thanks.

Yesterday I went to Six Flags with Karen. We met up at a shopping center near by and left my car there. We took her car since she had a parking pass to get us in to park for free. Normally it is $10 just to park. The park opens at 10:30 and we were parked by about 10:35. Fairly close so I think we were pretty early overall.

Karen has a season pass and as a bonus it comes with a coupon book. One of the coupons was for free admission which she nicely let me use. It has been probably ten years since I was at this park. At the time I think it was called Wild World. In the middle it was also called Adventure World before becomming Six Flags America. The park has changed a lot over the years. Adding many new rides and a water park. Most of the old rides except for a few wooden coasters are gone.

We walked in and pretty much headed for the first coaster we saw which was mind eraser. We were pleasantly surprised to almost no lines. We waited at most 5 minutes to get on. After that we headed over to the Gotham part of the park which almost all new coasters. We went on Joker's Jinx, Superman and Batwing. Batwing had the longest wait, about 20 minutes. However that mostly due to the fact that it had only one of two cars running and it takes so long to load and unload.

This is where the one bad part of the day occured. It seems that on batwing my phone managed to work its way out of my pocket. It is now inhabiting the ground underneath Batwing somewhere. I figured it out quickly but no sign of it. I went to guest services to fill out a lost item form. It wasn't very encouraging. When I asked how to find out if they find the phone the person tore of a corner of paper and scrawled out a number.

Trying to not let it get me too down we went on with the rest of the day. We got some food and drink and then headed for other parts of the park. We walked through Looney Toons land, not much to do if you are over 36-54" tall. We then headed to Two Face which is another coaster. We then went to the white water rapids ride.

After that we started a circuit of some of the earlier coasters again. Still at this point there were next to no lines. We rode Superman just before it broke for a bit. We were actually stuck just outside the loading place as they worked one the other train. Took about 10 minutes.

We left about 5 PM since I was pretty tired by then. I had gotten quite a bit of sun. I realized that late last night and even more so when people mentioned it at work.

I called tonight to see about phone. Nothing, I am pretty much set at this point to go get a new one. Oh well.

As I have been working on my house I have been listening to lots of audiobooks. I first finished listening to all of Douglas Adams books. This indcluded all five parts of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and his two Dirk Gently novels. I recommend them all, especially in audio format since they are read by the author who is good actor.

After finishing those I moved onto Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series. I listened to the first on Patrick's recommendation and have since listened to book 2 and 3. I will begin listening to book 4 shortly. These are also very well done productions. They have about 4-6 actors play the roles throughout the books. The books change perspective often and it is nice to have the different voices to help with those transitions. The series is a really interesting sci-fi universe. The first book stands alone quite well and is a bit different from the sequels, but I have enjoyed them as well.

I am also reading the latest Harry Potter book The Half Blood Prince. I actually got it at a midnight sale with my friend Karen. She finished it that weekend, I am however a bit slower. I am over half way through and try to do about a chapter a night.

I spent many hours Thursday and today hacking at the jungle that surrounds my house. I need to regrade near the walls of my basement. In order to do so I need to be able to get to them. This is difficult since the bushes, vegetables, weeds and who knows what else has grown out of control for at least a year. I am in the process of hacking much of it back. In some cases probably more than is needed, I figure it will just grow back though. I am also just trying to kill some stuff outright. I have tried some stuff called liquid edger, didn't seem to work to well. Need something with a little more power. I will try again I guess.

Most of my shopping for stuff to work on my house has been at Home Depot. This weekend though I went to Lowes since I had a 10% of coupon to use. I found some interesting differences.

Lowes - Lots of employees, especially at check out counters. Much brighter and cleaner. Selection of wiring stuff stinks, maybe 6 ft wide. Better layout it seems.

Home Depot - Very few employees, one register. Better selection. Half an aisle for wiring. Random layout almost.

For now Home Depot gets my business, but I may check a few more times.

On Om Malik's Blog I found this story today. The FCC changed the rules today governing local phone companies like Verizon and SBC. Previously they were legally bound to allow other companies such as Speakeasy and Covad to lease the lines and provide competing service. After today's ruling the local companies are allowed to bar the other companies. That means that potentially one day Verizon just cuts off all the Speakeasy lines and makes you switch to Verizon.

The reasoning for this ruling was to level the playing field with cable internet providers. The cable companies were not required to share their lines and allow competing providers. The FCC decided to take away the requirement from the phone companies as a result. I am not one for regulation usually but in this case it may make things really bad for the consumer.

I think the end game here is that there will only be two internet providers in any give area. In my area that would mean either Verzion DSL or FIOS and the alternative of Comcast cable modem. Right now the competition is intense between them and the other guys help, but once it is only them it may change. Also there are services that neither offer which I would sorely miss such as allowing hosting and static IPs without outrageous fees.

It just seems the FCC is rolling back all the things that enabled all of the great competition to begin. Hopefully it isn't a huge mistake.

Tuesday night I went to a Nationals vs. Dodgers game. Jerry got the tickets like 2 months ago. Jerry and Karri went as well as Jerry's parents. I left work about 3 PM and ran by home and then left home about 3:30 PM. I drove down to Green Belt metro and got on there. Road down to RFK. I got there like 75 minutes before the rest. I just laid down in the park near rfk and listened to ipod.

It was freaking hot this night. Like 95 degrees and super humidity. Just spent the night sweating. The nats have installed a nice new big screen for replays. The food and drink service seems to have improved greatly since the last time I went.

The nats were behind most of the game. They rallied in the 8th but couldn't quite make it. Fun game though.

I got home about midnight, long day.

On Tuesday night I got a followup call from Mid-Atlantic. They wanted to send out a manager or something to try to work on pricing with me. It took me about 2-3 minutes of saying no to finally get them to give up. They just didn't seem to understand that the numbers I was talking and the numbers they were talking were not anywhere close. Oh well.

Tonight I had a gentleman named Hal (originally from Iceland) visit me from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing. I wanted to get an inspection and estimate on anything that might be needed to be done in basement. What I was hoping for was an overall evaluation of the basement and any problems it might have. Then some suggestions on what to do and what they can offer.

Hal did a through check and layout of the basement. He asked lots of questions and pointed some stuff out. There were many questions I had no answers to since I have only lived here for 2 months. That was first 30-45 minutes or so. After getting all the info together he then started telling me about the company.

This is when the selling began. He started telling me about other jobs the company has done and their history. Then he started telling me about some of the problems my house has and methods to fix them. The first was a total excavation of all 4 walls of my house. This would only cost $35,000. This of course was um shocking.

Then he went on to tell me what other places would do. He told me about the French drain system other's would install. He said other's would charge me $7,000. At this point I was like ok, so Mid-Atlantic will be less that is why they told me what the competitors do. Oh no, wrong. He then told me about their amazing dual water removal blah blah blah.

This system is similar to the French drain but better obviously and also way more expensive. I will admit it sounds pretty cool, but still. He started at $14,000 roughly. He saw my hesitation and the hard sell began.

He called the office and amazingly they had a cancellation in the next few weeks. This would allow them to give me the ReMax price. This new lower price was only $12,500. Again my hesitation was obvious. He sweetened the deal with another $500 coupon, woo hoo. Back to the title "$12,000 are you high?"

Let me explain my scale here. 2 figures ($99 and below) is a DVD and can be bought on a whim. 3 figures ($999 and below) is a computer part or some other gadget, low pain threshold. 4 figures ($9999 and below) is a whole new computer, projector or stereo, medium pain threshold. 5 figures ($99999 and below) is a car that is about it, very high pain threshold. Anything above that is a house, which drove me insane and still is.

As you can see when things get to the point they did, I um have issues. Hal did not want to hear this. He tried many avenues to get me to sign on the dotted line as it were. Even saying that I could cancel in the next 48-72 hours. Um no I am not committing to $12,000 I don't have. He was not thrilled to hear this, tough.

I talked to my parent's afterward and my dad was not too surprised. He had said they would try to sell me something of this sort. Which I guess I can see was obvious at this point. What else would they try to sell me. I am going to be doing some more simple stuff in basement to prepare for any water that might enter it. This type of sytem is just not in the budget.